"Don't fret. Take yer time. I'm a goin' t' the ferry. Few words comprehends th' whole," he remarked to Griffith, and examined the look of his gun, with critical deliberation. When the wagons were ready to start Jerry whispered to his master that two of the other young negroes had run off during the night, and yet Mr. Davenport pushed on. It was not until late the next afternoon when the dome of the Capitol at Washington burst upon their sight that Griffith and Katherine breathed free. The splendid vision in the distance put new life and interest in the negroes. Their restlessness settled into a childlike and emotional merrymaking, and snatches of song, and banter, and laughter told that danger of revolt or of stampede was over. Judy, alone, sulked in the wagons, and Mammy vented her discontent on the younger ones by word and blow, if they ventured too near her or her white charge. At last the Long Bridge alone stood between them and a liberty that could not be gainsaid--and another liberty for the master which had been so dearly and hazardously bought. The Long Bridge was spanned and the strange party drove down Pennsylvania Avenue to the office of the attorney who had arranged for their reception. The Long Bridge was past and safety was theirs! Griffith glanced back and then turned to look. "Katherine," he said, smiling sadly, "we have crossed the dead line. We are all safe!" He sighed with the smile still on his lips. "It is terrible not to feel safe! Terrible! Terrible!" she said in an undertone, "not to feel safe from pursuit, from behind, and from unknown and unaccustomed dangers near at hand--terrible!" So accustomed had Griffith been to caring for and housing these negroes, who, now that they were in the midst of wonders of which they never had dreamed, clung to him with an abiding faith that whatever should betide he would be there to meet it for them--so accustomed had he been to caring for them that it had never occurred to Griffith not do so, even now when they were no longer his. "Are the cabins ready?" he asked the attorney's clerk, and sent all but Mammy to the huts which had been provided on the outskirts. "Go along with this gentleman, children," he said. "Mammy will stay with us, and after Jerry takes us to the hotel he will come and tell you what else to do. Good-bye! Goodbye! Keep together until Jerry comes." All was uncertainty; but it was understood by all that several of the negroes were to go with the family and the rest to remain here. Griffith had decided to take to his new home Jerry and his wife, Ellen, and the twins; Mammy and Judy, and, if possible, Sally and John. It was here, and now, that he learned the inhospitality of the free states to the freed negroes. "I intend to take several of them with, me and----" "Can't do it," broke in the attorney, "Indiana's a free state." "Well, I can take'em along and _hire_ 'em, I reckon." "Reckon you can't--not in Indiana." "What!"